Faith Lutheran Preschool eNews: Newsletter 4/9/14

Important Dates to Remember:
April 11th - Egg-stravaganza egg decorating at Faith; 6:00-8:00PM
April 12th - UAA Creative Arts Fair 1-4PM
April 18th - No Preschool; Good Friday
April 21st - No Preschool; Easter Monday

THIS WEEK’S LITERACY EXPERIENCES
Morning Books
"That is Not a Good Idea" by Mo Willems
"How to Hide a Lion" by Helen Stephens
"Have You Seen My New Blue Socks?" by Eve Bunting

Afternoon Books
"David Goes to School" by David Shannon

PLANNING & RECALL
This week at planning and recall time we incorporate literacy into the process. Children have a chance to write or draw their plans for work time. Giving children frequent and varied opportunities to write and draw, no matter at what stage they are, increases their concept of print.

BIBLE LESSON
In the church year, we are in the season of Lent and quickly approaching Easter. Because of this, we have made a jump in our Bible lesson from Old Testament lessons to the New Testament. In this week's lesson, we hear how Jesus entered the city of Jerusalem the week before he would die on the cross. After sharing a special meal with his twelve disciples, he went to the Garden of Gethsemane with them to pray. He instructed his disciples to wait for him while he prayed alone. Jesus cried out to his Heavenly Father asking him to take away the suffering he knew he was about to endure. Yet Jesus knew that his Father's will would be done. After praying in the garden, Judas, one of Jesus' disciples who betrayed him, led Jesus' enemies to him to so they could arrest him.

In his time of turmoil, Jesus turned to his Heavenly Father in prayer and knew he would hear him. Jesus knew his Father's will and answer would be the best, so he prayed that his Father's will would be done. We also want to pray that whatever our Father wants for us will be done, because we know that he loves us and wants what is best for us.
Bible verse: Ephesians 1:7 "We have through Jesus' blood, the forgiveness of sins."
Bible song: "Oh Perfect Life of Love"

MUSIC
This week we learn about rhythm and the concept that rhythm patterns may be either the same or different. A rhythm pattern is a series of several notes that comprise a logical unit. Children begin to develop their ability to hear and perform short rhythm patterns this week. We sing the song "Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear" to explore these rhythmic concepts, using our hands and instruments to copy the patterns.

MOVEMENT
In Movement Time we warm up to the song "Work Your Body" which asks us to stretch, bend, squat, climb, bend at the waist, kick our legs, and turn around. We have all really enjoyed using our new material this week: a parachute. In the introduction lesson we explore the parachute by sitting down and hiding our legs under it. We create slow and fast waves, practice rowing the parachute "boat" and rolling up the chute into a ball. To close our lesson we cool down with a song called "Run and Walk".

SMALL GROUP TIME
This week during Small Group Time, we’re focusing on a Key Developmental Indicator (KDI): Shapes . At first, very young children are not able to consistently differentiate one shape from another, such as triangles or rectangles. Somewhat later, children do form general categories for shapes, but they relate them to their own experiences rather than to identifiable or distinctive properties. For example, they say a figure is a rectangle "because it looks like a door" or something is a circle "because it's like a clock". To encourage children's development in shape recognition we practice shaping and naming 2D shapes, create shapes with pipe cleaners, go on a shape hunt in the classroom, glue and match shapes, and play a guessing game with shapes.